ARTïTS

Nancy Dunaway – USA

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Nancy Dunaway is an Arkansas artist whose work includes 2-D mixed media on paper, collage, printmaking, artist’s books, boxes and altars. Nancy received a BA in Studio Art from Hendrix College. After teaching art in public and private schools for 15 years, she served as Chair of the Art Department at Henderson State University, where she taught classes in Drawing, Illustration, Book Arts, Experimental and Contemporary Media and Art Education. In 2001, she received an Individual Artist Fellowship Award in Book Arts from the Arkansas Arts Council. Nancy, who received her MFA from Savannah College of Art & Design in Illustration, illustrated two children’s picture books for August House. Her work has been seen regionally and nationally in many venues including the Delta Exhibition and Toys Designed by Artists, at the Arkansas Arts Center, the American Drawing Biennial in Williamsburg VA, the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News, VA, the Schneider Museum in Ashland, OR, St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM, the Nabisco World Headquarters in East Hanover, NJ, and the Albuquerque Museum, to name a few. Her work, Drifting Toward Dawn, was exhibited in the American Embassy in Brassaville, the Congo, as part of the US State Department’s Art in Embassies Program. She has led workshops in Book Arts, Collage, Mixed Media, & Printmaking in the US and Canada. Nancy’s work is in a number of private and corporate collections. One of her artist’s books, Hildegarde of Bingen, is a part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Another of her artist’s books, Feathers & Findings, was selected for Lark’s original 500 Handmade Books.

“They don’t define me”

Rust prints with hibiscus tea, metallic stitches, staples – 28 x 38cm – 2017

“… Women are often defined by others and, unfortunately, often even define themselves, by their breasts. I am a ten-year breast cancer survivor and, during my surgeries and treatments, became aware of how breasts were thought of if they were uneven or scarred from surgery or disease. I also became aware of how some women bought into the idea that even without a disease or medical reason, their breasts were inferior or unattractive, so they chose cosmetic solutions. This is a sad situation to me that anyone would allow someone else’s opinion to determine what they chose to do with their own body. These pieces offer an intriguing view of stitched, stapled and unevenly sized and colored breasts. The first series of four, In the Mind of the Beholder, references those breasts women chose to alter themselves, either because of a partner or spouse’s perception, or societial perceptions, or of their own perception of their original breasts as not being enough. The second series of four, They Do Not Define Me, references the scarred, often uneven and misshapen breasts of women who have undergone surgery for diseases of the breast and in my case, specifically breast cancer. The threads in both series of stitched breasts are silver and gold and represent the lessons offered in all choices women make, if we choose to pay attention to them…”